I'd like to be able to set a "user object" on an Element (in lieu of
subclassing, using factories, special builders, etc. - see Factories for
element creation discussion).
It would basically add the following to the Element class:
public void setUserObject( Object o);
public Object getUserObject();
Purpose: allow custom application data (not related to parsing XML) to
travel around with Element objects.
Examples:
- An XML tool could read data with JDOM, allow modifications visually (which
modify the JDOM tree), and store arbitrary UI data in the Element, such as a
color or icon to use when rendering it.
- An XML processor could use the JDOM tree, and mark which elements had been
visited already by storing a "visited" user object (a Boolean flag, for
example)
Comments?